8 free fitness apps that can help you get in shape — and what they’re best for

source Shutterstock/antoniodiaz Getting in shape can change your life. Regular exercise is the closest thing to a miracle drug that we have. It can improve your physical health, fight disease, extend your life, boost your mood and memory, combat anxiety and depression, and more. Plus, it just feels good to be fit. If you don’t already have an established exercise routine, it’s hard to go from intending to work out to actually getting it done. That could be one reason why more than 75% of Americans don’t get enough exercise. If you’re trying to figure out how to start a fitness routine or looking to track your fitness journey, apps can help. No single app is perfect, but depending on your goals, free fitness apps can help you build strength, get better at running, and improve your stretching or recovery. For a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in 2017, a team of researchers analyzed how well 28 different fitness apps matched the exercise guidelines of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). The 28 apps were chosen because they’d been reviewed before in a previous study on fitness apps, and were selected from the more than 100,000 health- and fitness- apps available. In general, the government’s recommended physical activity guidelines call for healthy adults to do at least two and a half hours of moderate-intensity activity – or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity – per week, along with muscle-strengthening exercises at least twice a week. The… [Read full story]